


Less Afraid of Ghosts

by ivyspinners



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25219420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: There's not a lot of beauty to be found in the slums, which is not to say there isn't love.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: Fandom Giftbox 2020





	Less Afraid of Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prosodiical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/gifts).



There's not a lot of beauty to be found in the slums, which is not to say there isn't love. The very dirt, dust, and grime make love grow strongest, a struggle and reward never taken for granted.

Tifa remembers the long, bone-wearying journey to Midgard in snatches—cold snapping her cheeks, belly tight with scarring, water lapping against a bobbing hull of a small vessel, the air growing heavy with humid warmth. Zangan's tired smile, and Zangan's bowed back as he shrank into the distance.

But what she remembers most is stumbling to the end of her tether, five gil to her name, and finding—

"Stargazer Heights." Marle helped her up with a bark of laughter. "As real as a dream."

As she slept that night, Tifa had thought—oh. Kind.

+

There's a certain unyielding tenacity to those raised under plate, like some kind of weed or moss. The ones without acid and sharp edges, or at the very least stubborn roots, never make it to adulthood. Even Marlene, for whom Barret saves all his gentleness, hurls muck at boys who tease her, like a bothered cat marking her territory.

Aerith doesn't surprise her at all. Not that way.

"You've got to hit them where it hurts," Aerith grins. Her foot grinds harder into the thug's shin, then she wacks him across the temple with her staff.

Tifa shares her smile. "Oh, I know. It's figuring out _where_ it hurts most."

In the brief stillness after the scuffle, with a practiced fighter's instinct, she feels Aerith's eyes rake her from head to toe. There's nothing judgmental about it exactly, but there's something in the earthy green (moss, wearing down stone until it crumbles into dust) that is assessing. Something, Tifa thinks when she looks back, very _aware_.

"The most fun I've had for—hm, there's been a lot of fun tonight." Aerith gives her staff a deft twist, then bends down to reach for her clothing. Her back forms a graceful bare curve, braid slipping over one shoulder. Sweat gleams on the nape of her neck.

Warmth prickles her throat, sliding down to her belly. Tifa turns to get changed. Her fancy dress isn't going to transform magically into fighting gear, if she doesn't do it herself.

"Ready?" she asks, instead of answering.

"Lets go save the boy," Aerith says.

+

When she was fifteen, the most treacherous challenge was Mount Nebel, but the most feared was ShinRa Mansion and its many ghosts. Tifa dared no further than the entrance. The mountains were a celebration of boundless sky, the air light with the scent of distant pine needles and snow. She went there instead and climbed up into its openness, the earth spreading out below like temptation.

Maybe, now, she would be less afraid of ghosts if she had challenged the mansion after all.

"Is this what your playgrounds are like?" she half-whispers to Aerith, while Cloud investigates some boxes with his sword. Dust billows into the air. She coughs, tears stream from her burning eyes.

"All metal and abandoned?" Aerith asks, not bothering to keep her voice down. "One of two. Mostly they were made of junk of any sort."

"Dangerous," Tifa insists. She thinks of Marlene, of the bar, of a faded safety certificate that was definitely forged and never updated. Of the last three years brushing off unsavoury characters. "More dangerous than usual."

Aerith nudges her shoulder and hooks their arms together as they walk past Cloud. "Aren't all adventures? Walking through a haunted graveyard at night is _everything_ I ever wanted when I was nine." She offers a sly smile to Tifa, slantwise, her weight warm and dependable like rich earth. "I wasn't afraid."

Tifa nearly jumps as Cloud's sword crashes into another box, now behind them. "I'm not! It's just very... easy to get lost in."

A head against her shoulder, as brief as the spring's first flower, bursting out of thawing snow. "We'll find the way out."

They are in a race against time back to Sector Seven, and Tifa does not forget. It's good to know that Aerith can make things—bearable—but she does not forget either.

+

Love had died with her family, as her home collapsed into raging flame. It is her story, Barret's, Jessie's, so many others', even if the fire was a reactor explosion, or men falling into chemicals, or the planet dying beneath their feet. In its place, hate provides a fire of its own. A burn.

But it doesn't keep her warm, the way Cloud's return had. Like Marlene's smile and Barret's friendship; AVALANCHE's acceptance, if not their casualties. Like it had felt to fist her hand around Aerith's wrist, yank her out of a hurricane of shrieking phantoms, and keep her _safe_ from her own ghosts, but—

The starless sky collapses inwards. Love and family always die in flames.

+

But Marlene is safe. Aerith succeeded.

+

The yard isn't a garden so much as a sprawling riot of green, threatening to spill out of Midgar's rules—boundaries. Flowers brush against her ankles, whisper-soft. She kneels down to touch a leaf. A hidden garden, no longer so hidden, and very much alive. Tifa hasn't seen so much green in for the past five years. Hasn't seen this shade at all in all that time, outside of Aerith's eyes.

As if summoned, there she is, a presence against Tifa's back. She doesn't jump; aloneness seems a state of mind here, now.

"This is a dream. I'm not really here." Aerith's hands are linked behind her back, her gaze tilted up towards the steel plate. The glow illuminating her face seems softer, somehow, than the neon of mako-lamps, and it casts no shadow.

"Neither am I," Tifa murmurs, eyes slipping shut. She inhales until her ribs creak. Even here, there is a hint of acrid smog, so different from the year-round chill of Nebelheim, the cold bite of air exploding cleanly in the lungs of mountain climbers. Longing punches her gut; she almost tastes pines and ice on her tongue.

She feels as much as hears Aerith breathe in too, her gasp. "Where is that?"

"Home," Tifa says. Yearning lodges in her throat, and she cannot say more.

"Home," Aerith echos. The starched fabric of her jacket scratches Tifa's neck, then she, too, settles on the ground. "The place you grew up?" Tifa nods. "What was it like? Could you see the sky? Do you miss being away?"

Tifa curls her fingers, staying stiff even as Aerith relaxes so they're back to back. "Yes. It was small and quiet." She makes a fist, blunt nails digging into her palms. "Once. Before ShinRa."

"I'm sorry for bringing it up," says Aerith, her frenetic energy fading.

She lets the tension melt from her shoulders, covers Aerith's hand with her own. "Where are you?"

"Where _I_ grew up." ShinRa Tower.

"Sorry," she says, "in so many ways."

Aerith laughs, almost warm enough to be real. She wishes she could see Aerith's face. "Sector Five is my home. I studied at Leaf House. They only charged me flowers." Aerith's hand turns in hers, clasping. "There used to be this classmate of mine, who was a much better student than me—and when he graduated, he came back to be a teacher."

"I don't buy it," Tifa interrupts. "You'd be the one pulling pranks but acing the tests anyway."

"Mmm, I'm not admitting to anything," says Aerith. "But I do know Mrs Dare didn't have any problems chasing us out of the classroom. She was married twice. One of her children decided to teach as well, the other's moved to Sector Eight."

"Poor guy," says Tifa. No one wants to move to Sector Eight if they can help it.

"That's what Mrs Dare said," Aerith agrees, "but not as nicely."

Tifa laughs. "We should get drinks some day. You can show me where you all hid."

It's almost like being normal. No desperate missions to save the planet, no men in suits shadowing their footsteps, no ashes floating on the wind from burned out buildings—past, present, future. Her heart slows, warmth thrumming through her veins like an absent welcome home, after a long trip through freezing mountains.

They speak until Tifa's eyelids droop, the garden blurring into a swirl of yellow and green. Exhaustion has cracked this fragile shell of whatever it is Aerith wrought. Her head tilts into Aerith's shoulder—Aerith, who is yawning too.

"We'll find you," Tifa promises.

The world dissolves into mist.

+

Light falls slantwise onto the wooden floor, dusting the furniture gold. A crack in Midgar's top plate, she thinks.

Tifa's stretches on the bed. For a moment, if no longer, her fingers are warm without burning. She touches her fingers to her lips and drags them in a gentle line, feeling her cheeks heat.

The grief creeps in like a light-footed thief, sneaking into places in her heart she thought locked, but today, she can confront it. She can breathe in, and out, air whisting through her teeth, and push down bile, and feel the softness of the sheets before she clenches her fist.

 _She's calling out to me_ , Cloud will say to Elmyra, someone whom Tifa looks at and thinks—oh. Kind. _I can feel it._

 _We all can_ , Tifa will agree.

And in that grief, when she closes her eyes, she will almost see peaceful green.

+

The day after the last night in Midgar, a splendid sun thinning the mist on the ground, Tifa glances over her shoulder at the city that marked four years of her life. Untamed ground spreads ahead like promise, with a single snaking, isolated road vanishing over the horizon. It's a breath of fresh air.

"Ready?" she asks Aerith, linking their fingers.

Aerith squeezes back, a grin hovering over her mouth, eyes intent. "Yes."

Forgetting their audience for an instant, Tifa brings their palms up and brushes a kiss across Aerith's knuckles. Hard callouses on her palm, and dirt beneath fingernails--real.

+

There's not a lot of beauty to be found in the slums, which is not to say there isn't love.

+

fin

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is never expected, but always appreciated :D


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